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What is all this about?

If nothing is done, on January 1, 2010, all bus and subway services will by shut down!

You know that sinking feeling when you realize that you do not have enough money to pay for the essentials? It's like you are falling into a hole. At which point you start reviewing your expenses for things to cut and try and find ways to get more money.

Well the MBTA is in just that predicament. The purpose of this website is to fill you in on the situation and ask for your advice on how to close the budget gap for this upcoming fiscal year. This is serious stuff, considering that this deficit is the operational deficit, which means its the budget that keeps the lights on and the trains running.

What's this about the T being broke? Again?

Quoting from the Born Broke: How the MBTA found itself with too much debt, the corrosive effects of this debt, and a comparison of the T’s deficit to its peers:

For the past several years the MBTA has only balanced its budgets by restructuring debt, liquidating cash reserves, selling land, and other one-time actions. Today, with credit markets frozen, cash reserves depleted and the real estate market at a stand still, the MBTA has used up these options. This recession has laid bare the fact that the MBTA is mired in a structural, on-going deficit that threatens its viability.

In 2000 the MBTA was re-born with the passage of the Forward Funding legislation. This legislation dedicated 20% of all sales taxes collected state-wide to the MBTA. It also transferred over $3.3 billion in Commonwealth debt from the State's books to the T's books. In essence, the MBTA was born broke.

Throughout the 1990's the Massachusetts sales tax grew at an average of 6.5% per year. This decade the sales tax has barely averaged 1% annual growth. The underperformance of the sales tax coupled with too much debt has been slowly strangling the T for years. In FY10 the MBTA faces a $160.4 million deficit and without external assistance in the form of debt relief or new revenue the Authority will be forced to make draconian service cuts and impose dramatic fare increases.

The MBTA is not alone in facing financial difficulties. New economic realities have affected each of the 10 largest transit agencies in the United States. All are facing dwindling government subsidies and many are considering fare increases, layoffs, service cuts or some combination thereof.

The MBTA is stuck in a financial, not organizational quagmire. No amount of reorganization, reform, or efficiencies can generate the $160 million needed to close the FY10 budget gap, let alone the even larger deficits projected in the future. Until the MBTA's underlying debt and financing weaknesses are addressed, all such changes, at best, will only delay the T's day of reckoning. Relief of the $3.3 billion in Commonwealth debt currently on the MBTA's books is the fairest, most efficient and most feasible way to solve for the MBTA's underlying financial deficiencies.

What do you want from me?

Unless there is a dramatic change in the economy or the state decides to give special money to the T, something has to be done. So instead of that something being done in a bubble, its better to hear from you. So take some time and learn about the T's budget and how it works, then offer your opinion on where to get additional revenue or where things should be cut.

The question is, what should the T do if they cannot change the cost of the service their provide and are not going to get any special money from the state. This means that this currently this site focuses on reducing some expenses or increasing revenue. It does not focus on reducing the cost of services already provided.

How does this website work?

On the main page, you will see that the trolley is about to fall into the hole. Your job is to find additional revenue or cuts in expenses to fill the hole.

Clicking on the an arrow will bring you to the budget revenue or expenses. Each of those pages has line items for your proposed changes.

Clicking on the proposed changes line items will bring you to a detailed information page which will allow you to enter specific changes in policy or services to affect the budget. Your changes are then saved and the results reflected on the main page.

Clicking on the description of a budget line item will bring up a short explanation.

Why can't I change all the numbers?

Two reasons:

In order to make changes to the MBTA's cost of offering service, you will need to know a great deal of detail that make up these line items. That information is currently not available from the MBTA.

The second reason is to focus our attention on what sacrifices we are willing to make. While that might sound quite distasteful, it would be far worse to pretend that wringing out budget inefficiencies would solve the deficit problem and face service cuts or fare increases without hearing from you first.

So this site is soliciting from you a contingency plan, a worse case scenario.

That is why the only numbers you change at present are:

Where do these numbers come from?

All these numbers come from published documents by the state or the federal government. Clicking on the line item descriptions will show you the source for that data.

Who put this site together

Special thanks goes to: